The processes that are currently available to build rule packs for monitoring and management products such as MICROSOFT® Operations Manager (MOM) have a number of problems. They require the development of the rule pack within the management tool interface which means that the management tool must be installed. They are complex and confusing, exposing more options than are necessary. They do not allow multiple developers to work on a same rule pack at the same time without interfering with each other. They use binary source files that are not compatible with current source control management processes. They do not allow easy mixing and matching of various rule sets to create custom versions of a rule pack for different product Stock Keeping Units (SKUs). For example, it is difficult to build a custom rule pack for the MICROSOFT® Small Business Server line of products, which typically does not need the as many rules as the MICROSOFT® Exchange line of products. These problems make the development of rule packs costly and error prone.